


The Competence of Felicity Smoak

by Actually_Felicity_Smoak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Violence, season 2 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5277899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Felicity_Smoak/pseuds/Actually_Felicity_Smoak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic fills in the gap between two scenes in the Season 2 Finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Competence of Felicity Smoak

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the season 2 finale, and Felicity's role in stopping Slade. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know whose idea it was, and how they had put together the plan. This is one possibility.

"I can't cure him, I can't capture him, I can't even out-think him!"

"Then don't. Just… Make him out-think you."

It took a moment for her words to process.  Then relief washed over Oliver as he realized that Felicity had a plan. An idea.  At least a concept.  Maybe it wouldn't work. Maybe it couldn't even be attempted.  But for the first time in weeks, some of the load lifted off his shoulders, some weight he hadn't even realized he was carrying.  

Ever since Slade Wilson had reappeared in his life, Oliver had felt nothing but fear, hopelessness, and self-loathing.  Detective Lance had told him months ago that not every death in the city was his fault, but this time they _were_.  Each murder stemmed directly from his decisions, his lack of control, and the deaths were his sole responsibility.

But as he looked in Felicity's eyes, what he saw was ... compassion. This IT girl, this scientist, who understood cause and effect better than anyone Oliver knew; she knew everything that had led to this moment, and so she must understand that it was all his fault. But she came to him not with condemnation, but with an offer of help.

Help. It was a concept Oliver couldn't have even imagined two years before. _Be honest, Oliver_ , he thought, _it's a concept you couldn't have imagined since long before The Island_. Both his parents had loved him, he knew, and had wanted only the best for their family, yet the fact remained that they had raised both their children with an inability to trust others.

Time and again, he had come to Digg and to Felicity for help. Time and again, they had saved his mission, and his honor, when he could not have done so.  His greatest despair, since he saw Slade in his mother's parlor, was the knowledge that, when the full story came out, he would lose the only true camaraderie and support -- the only simple, straightforward _love_ \-- he had ever known in his life. A month ago, Oliver had finally revealed his role in Slade's vendetta, and although pressing events had kept Digg and Felicity at his side since then, a sickness in his heart reminded him constantly that once the Slade issue was resolved, they would surely go their separate ways.  

And still.. even so, even though he hadn't -- hadn't dared to -- ask for help, still she came to him, offering it anyway. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he drew breath into a chest that held the tiniest glimmer of hope.  Felicity's eyes offered a possibility he had never dared to dream of: that although the deaths in the city were entirely his fault, they needn't be entirely his responsibility.

The hope brought with it a new form of terror. He could hardly bring himself to speak. To continue the conversation meant to open the possibility that he had misunderstood. If Felicity didn't mean what he thought she meant, he didn't know if he'd be able to go on.  But not to speak was a different type of defeat.  

"What... "

".... how?" he finally managed.

\---------------------

Felicity took a deep breath.  All the ways she could be wrong flitted through her head. It was a practiced routine; she'd rehearsed the montage over and over again for the last few days. And, oh! If she failed, she failed for the entire city!  High-stakes analysis was something no amount of MIT all-nighters could have prepared her for.

But what Oliver was doing _wasn't working_. Someone had to try something new. And they were running out of time. She suppressed a terror much stronger than she'd felt when she was merely having her life threatened by a mirakuru-strengthened Isobel Rochev, and did her best to speak calmly.

"Look..." She sighed. "Slade... wants to hurt you. Bad. As much as possible."

"Yes, obviously," Oliver said impatiently.

"But that makes him predictable. If you offer him a way to hurt you, you _know_ he will take it."  She paused, searching Oliver's face for his reaction, praying it wouldn't turn violent, praying he felt safe enough to _listen_ , and think. So she was looking in his eyes when it clicked.

"How does that help us?" he asked.  In another tone, the question might have made her flinch away.  But Oliver's voice wasn't angry or challenging. It was the tone she'd first heard in her office at Queen Consolidated, when she broke into the bullet-riddled laptop for him, and they studied blueprints together. It was Oliver Queen, finally, _finally_ , looking at the problem before him, and brainstorming ways to solve it.

"It lets you get an agent inside. Look ... Slade... it matters to him to do this personally.  If killing them will hurt you, he'll want to do it with his own hands. If he's close enough to snap a neck, he's close enough to jam a needle into."

Oliver nodded, slowly.  "So if we offer him a target, with the cure in their pocket, they'll be able to hit him with it, as he closes in for the kill."  A pause, while Oliver looked away.  "I don't think it will work, Felicity. He'll still be watching my hands; he's too much of a fighter not to. It's one of the first things he trained me in. He'll never let his guard down that much."

She took another deep breath. "I know. That's why it has to be someone who's not a fighter. Someone with whom he'll let his guard down. It can't be Digg. It can't be Roy. Thea's already gone.  It has to be me."

\-------------

Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was hope she'd given him, out of nowhere, unasked for, like a blessing.  Maybe it was just the fact that he had thought of nothing but Slade for more than two months. But for some reason, hearing those words didn’t trigger what that statement usually would have conjured -- a perfect, clear, high-def vid clip of Felicity's throat being closed off by Slade's gloved hand.  

Instead, what came into his head was the moment when, as he lay sprawled on the dirt of Lian Yu, Slade Wilson had laughed, and said "There might be some fight in you yet, kid", and reached out a hand to pull Oliver up.  

Two days later, they had taken the control tower of Fyres' airfield, but it was that moment that Oliver always remembered: the first time anyone, any person at all, had looked at Oliver Queen, and said, "I believe you can do this."  And backed up that statement by putting their own life on the line, with nothing to protect them but Oliver's capability. It had changed his life, that moment. That statement. That belief. More than Slade's training, or wisdom, or experience, it had been Slade's belief that had given Oliver the strength to do what he must, make the choices he'd had to make.

And if those choices had also led him to his death in Blood's engineered chaos, at least he would die knowing he'd done his best, had been his best, in the time he had allotted to him. It was a trade he would make any day of his life.

He looked over at Felicity -- clearly terrified, hurt, and sad, but still offering herself to stop this horror -- and saw, not a denizen of Starling City, one who must be protected, but a younger Oliver Queen. One who, with training, and experience, and belief, might become a protector.

And he couldn't find it within him to extinguish that potential.

"Yeah, OK."

\---------------------

The rest of the planning was just details. They needed a way to convince Slade that Felicity meant more to him than Laurel. Oliver remembered the bugs he'd found at the mansion, and realised they had the perfect way to communicate with Slade without raising suspicion. They grabbed a syringe and jumped on his bike.

On the drive over, Oliver planned his lies. He'd become quite good at lying over the years; but the acts he hated the most were the ones that required him to demonstrate emotion. It was easy enough to let the emotions boil out of him, but he was never certain he'd be able to get them back under control.

He thought through plausible reasons, arguments that would convince Slade. Yes, he'd loved Laurel when he got on the boat, but that was years ago.  Of course he hadn't intended to fall in love with his IT manager, but she was beautiful, and smart, and she looked at him in a way that made him believe he could do good in this world.

The arguments came easily; each one jumped into his mind as naturally as the truth ever had.  Not that truth came all that easily to him -- evading questions was one of the first things he'd learned from his parents -- but still, the statements came without the kind of sick twist he usually felt in his stomach when he spoke a falsehood.  He paused in the driveway, trying to pin down the feeling, as Felicity dismounted and walked to the front door.

"...Oliver?" she said uncertainly.

The train of thought broke as he looked up and met her gaze.  He closed his eyes, forced his emotions to obey his will, and followed her into the mansion.

\------------------------------------

In the end, he couldn't even conjure any arguments.

"I need you to be safe.” The exact words he’d said to Laurel hours ago -- eons ago -- when they’d headed out to bury Slade’s army.

“Well I don’t want to be safe. I want to be with you. And the others. Unsafe.”  No matter what he’d thought when they came up with this plan, now all he could think when she said that was Slade, bruising Felicity’s neck as he choked the life out of her. Slade, snapping Felicity’s spine. Slade, slitting Felicity’s throat. 

“I can’t let that happen!” It burst out of him uncontrolled. Shit. Had he compromised the plan? No, that was OK, that fit.   
  
“Oliver. You’re not making any sense.”  Her eyes searched his, asking if he was all right, asking if the plan was still on.  He struggled to remember what the plan even was.

“Slade took Laurel because he wants to kill the woman I love.”  Yes, that was right, that was one of his lines. 

“I know, so..” He interrupted her before he could forget again.  
  
“So he took the wrong woman.”

“Oh.”  Felicity’s eyes widened, and he found himself staring at her. There was something else.  He struggled to remember what he’d planned to say. He was supposed to talk about … about why… the reasons for...

"I love you." Was that right? It felt right. It felt good. But he couldn’t make his mind focus. Couldn’t remember what the plan was. Couldn’t get himself back under control.  “Do you understand?”  He held eye contact begging her to understand. He didn’t even know what, but he needed someone to understand, all his pain, all his fear, all the intensity he was feeling right now. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t explain himself, but Felicity was smart, she could figure it out, surely, if anyone could...

“Yes.”  Her nod reassured him, told him he’d done well, that it was OK.  With an effort of will, he tore himself away and walked out, to try to pull himself together. To rejoin the team. To fight the army, while waiting for Slade to call him. Waiting to bet everything he had on the competence of Felicity Smoak.


End file.
